Are you fed up with not building an ounce of muscle after all that hard work in the gym? Do you want to finally fit into that extra large tee you bought six months earlier with your arms busting out of its sleeves? 
Imagine yourself going shirtless with six pack abs, a beefed-up chest, mountain shoulders, and popeye forearms at the beach. If you're currently struggling to build lots of muscle, then pay attention to these 5 sure-fire tactics for beefing up and building lean muscle mass. Take these strategies and roll with it.
Around 90% of guys trying to pack on 30 40, or 50 pounds of muscle will fail. It's really all about knowing what to do, and then more importantly doing it right. It's like treasure hunting. You need the roadmap and directions. Then you need to follow the map step by step to the the pot of gold at the end.
Consider this a back-to-basics primer to bodybuilding.
1) Do Compound Exercises
Compound exercises are multi-joint movements that work 2 or more major muscle groups at once. They're the lifts that work mulitple muscles. With compounds, you're able to lift more and get stronger faster. It's like killing 2 birds with one stone. The stronger you get, the more muscle you will build. You stimulate the release of natural muscle building anabolic hormones like HGH to build more muscle.
Compound exercises also saves time since you won't have to spend a single isolation exercise on a particular muscle group. For example, the squat works the quads, hamstrings, lower back, traps, and abs in one go, in one set. You don't have to spend separate exercises for each muscle group.
Here's a list of the most common and effective compound exercises,
- dumbbell/barbell deadlift, stiff leg deadlift, one arm deadlift
- barbell squat, front squat, hack squat, one leg squat, dumbbell squat, box squat
- military press, dumbbell shoulder press, dumbbell arnold press
- chinups and pullups with body weight
- chinups and pullups with weight vest or weight belt
- barbell/dumbbell row, one arm dumbbell row, t-bar row, bench row
- glute ham raise, dumbbell/barbell lunges
- dumbbell/barbell bench press in flat, decline, or incline positions
2) Go heavy with the weights
Provided you use good form, add more weight to the bar and use a 5-8 rep scheme instead of the 10-12 rep range that many bodybuilders and lifters so commonly use these days. Heavier weights produces more tension in the muscles. The tension will get you stronger in the long run as it creates more microtrauma. More microtrauma = more muscle.
This also offers a nice change of pace in your training since you'll be adding weight to the bar, especially if you've plateaued recently. You've never seen a really weak guy with big muscles so work in using heavier and heavier weights.
3) Eat more food
"Eat big to get big" holds true all the time. It doesn't matter how many calories you're eating now if you're not gaining weight. It could be 3000, 4000, or 5000 calories but if you're not building muscle and gaining any weight, then you will have to eat more.
Often lifters underestimate how many calories they eat. Calories surplus is the name of the game here. Break your meals into 5-6 meals and eat more often. The equation of 16 X your body weight and then adding 500 calories for finding calories surplus, as outlined in muscle building 101, is a good starting point but if you don't gain a single pound after 2 weeks, then it's time to bump up the calories. A an extra 300 calories to the figure every week you don't gain weight and muscle.
Monitor your weight and keep on adjusting your calories upwards as you build muscle. The diet that took you from 130 lbs to 150 lbs isn't going to take you from 150 lbs to 180 lbs. The more you weigh, the more you'll have to eat.
If you eat like a bird, you'll look like a bird.
4) Eat more protein
Muscle is made of protein. Zoom in on a muscle fiber to a microscopic level and you'll find protein and water as its makeup. So protein builds muscle. Each gram of protein is also 4 calories so it also helps to add calories to your diet. Eat those steaks, chicken breasts, turkey, eggs, and lean cuts of meat.
Have a whey protein drink or liquid protein meal after an intense workout since the body would be screaming for nutrients.
5) Get more sleep
Roughly 90% of the actual repairing and muscle growth takes place in your bedroom. The body needs to sleep to repair the "damaged" muscles from your workouts and to supercompensate to grow bigger, larger, and thicker.
Don't stay up too late and miss your sleep. 8 hours is a good start. Make sleep a priority.
So if you're really serious about building massive muscle, use these 5 strategies into your bodybuilding program and start expecting better than expected results!
Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.
If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com
photo credits:
darkpatator
roonb
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